Too many Americans are eating too much protein.  It’s advertised everywhere, and is especially geared towards those who are on a weight training program.  The average American actually eats more protein than they need and in some cases more than is healthy.  American men consume twice as much protein as the Government recommends; women, nearly 1.5 times as much. 

Studies suggest that too much protein can be harmful to the body.  And for those who are looking to get big by working out hard with a bodybuilding regimen, excessive protein will not get you bigger.  More calories with the right amount of protein will.  Americans would be better off first focusing on what complex carbohydrate they are going to have with their meal and then what protein to add.
One of the main problems with meat is that a lot of it is high in fat.  Many studies have found a correlation with colon, rectal, and prostate cancer with high consumption rates of meat.  When you pick animal proteins you want to use turkey, chicken, tenderloin pork, and fish which have less fat and more of the essential fats our bodies need. 
Blood cholesterol levels can elevate which is a concern with the abundant consumption of animal protein.  High cholesterol is the leading risk factor for coronary heart disease.  Diets high in animal protein have been demonstrated to increase the bad cholesterol in our bodies, while diets high in plant protein generally have the opposite effect.

The national Cancer Institute compliles research on protein and cholesterol. Researchers from several countries exhaustively catalogued the diets of some 6,500 people in 65 different counties in China, where eating habits and disease rates vary tremendously among different regions.  What they found was that as the consumption of animal protein increased so did the risk of coronary heart disease.  Researchers even accounted for the fat in animal protein to give an accurate comparison.  The Chinese develop both coronary heart disease and cancer far less than Americans do. On average, Americans eat one-third more protein than the Chinese do.  The big factor is that 70 percent of the protein Americans eat comes from animal protein as compared to 11 percent for the Chinese.
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.